See also:
The Super Congress Will Be - Like the Federal Reserve - a Non-Constitutional Committee: "The Super Congress Amounts To An Institutionalization Of The Gang Structure That Exists Informally ..."
Ryan Grim has an update on his story about the "Super Congress", which I discussed yesterday:
The Super Congress amounts to an institutionalization of the gang structure that exists informally in the Senate, where a small number of lawmakers write legislation behind closed doors and then announce it to the public। Legislation written by the Super Congress would be extremely difficult for individual members of Congress to stop.No wonder both liberals and conservatives hate the proposal.
Indeed, the Founding Fathers' vision of prosperity has been destroyed - and we've gone from the "wealth of nations" to the "debt of nations" - at least in part because our political system has been subverted by non-Constitutional committees and entities.
For example, the country's most powerful "agency" - the Federal Reserve - is actually no more federal than Federal Express. The Fed itself admits(via Bloomberg):
While the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors is a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other government rules, the New York Fed and other regional banks maintain they are separate institutions, owned by their member banks, and not subject to federal restrictions.
For that reason, the New York Fed alleged in a lawsuit - Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan) - that it was not subject to Federal Freedom of Information Act.
As the long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee (Charles McFadden) said on June 10, 1932:
Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies ....
Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News August 1 that he thinks the law may be unconstitutional:
Is the new "Super Congress" Constitutional?
"Members of the Senate and members of the House have the opportunity under the Constitution to debate items that are sent to them and to modify items that are sent to them. To force them to vote just yes or know with no debate, not to follow the rules of the House, which permits amendments, not to follow the rules of the Senate, which permits a filibuster, is such a substantial removal of the authority the Constitution gave them that this legislation is treading in waters that might not be constitutional."
Here, members of Congress yield their individual legislative duties and responsibilities to a "Super Congress" selected not by the people -- but by Republican and Democrat leaders.
The Budget Control Act Of 2011 Violates Constitutional Order
How many of these Congressmen and Senators campaigned on the platform that they would be elected, get sworn in, and then obediently surrender the power their constituents vested in them to the very same Republican and Democrat leaders who have created the problems they were sent here to solve?
To facilitate passage of the joint committee's legislative proposals, Section 402 contains a number of procedural rules designed to expedite consideration of the joint committee recommendations. Generally, the rules require action by both houses no later than December 23, 2011, on a joint committee recommendation that must be submitted no later than December 9, 2011. Additionally, the section prohibits amendments to the proposed legislation and prescribes severe limits on the time for debate. In short the procedural rules dictate unity of action of a majority of each house to accelerate adoption of the deficit reductions recommended by the joint committee within a two-week period of time.
The Constitutional order is quite different. Article I, Section 1 vests the legislative power in a bicameral Congress composed of a House of Representatives and a Senate. The members of each body are elected in two very different manners. Each senator is elected by the vote of the people of an entire state, and each state has the same number of senators regardless of population. The members of the House are elected by the people in congressional districts divided into districts, each state being guaranteed at least one representative and the others allocated according to population.
The composition of each house then is deliberately designed by the Constitution to represent vastly different majorities. And for good reason. As the Supreme Court observed in I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 949 (1983), "by providing that no law could take effect without the prescribed majority of the Members of both Houses, the Framers reemphasized their belief ... that legislation should not be enacted unless it has been carefully and fully considered by the Nation's elected officials."
The Budget Control Act of 2011 departs from that commitment vesting incredible power in the joint committee, virtually guaranteeing that deficit reduction legislation will be "carefully and fully considered," if at all, only by 6 of 100 elected senators and 6 of 435 elected representatives.
These are not matters of constitutional form without meaning -- the process was considered central to the founders.
In the debates on the need for a bicameral legislature, James Wilson warned: "Is there a danger of a Legislative despotism? Theory & practice both proclaim it. If the legislative authority be not restrained, there can be neither liberty nor stability; and it can only be restrained by dividing it within itself, into distinct and independent branches."
Super Congress To Target Second Amendment
The so-called “Super Congress” that is about to be created with the debt ceiling vote will have powers far beyond just controlling the nation’s purse strings – its authority will extend to target the second amendment – eviscerating normal protections that prevent unconstitutional legislation from being fast-tracked into law.
Super Congress Getting Even More Powers in the Debt Deal
“This flies in the face of representative democracy. It is time for States to start talking secession. This is completely unconstitutional and cannot stand. The very idea that members of congress will not be permitted to offer amendments is beyond the pale. This is the birthday of hard fascism in America. Your only chance to stop it or slow it down is Ron Paul.”
Fiscal Conservatives Barred from Supercommittee (Updated)
The debt ceiling deal will pass the Senate early this afternoon. No suspense there. But the vote will be worth watching for another reason: Three Republican Senate sources tell TWS that senators who vote against the deal will be ineligible to serve on the so-called “supercommittee” for deficit reduction that the legislation creates.
While there’s certain logic to such a policy, it could be self-defeating. Excluding those who vote against the debt deal will ensure that some of the most fiscally conservative members of the Senate Republican caucus, including most of its freshmen, will be reading about the committee’s activities in the newspaper rather than guiding its decisions. Among those who have already declared their opposition to the deal: libertarian-leaning senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul; Jim DeMint, the aggressive fiscal hawk from South Carolina; conservative reformers Ron Johnson from Wisconsin and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania; the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, Jeff Sessions; and Florida’s Marco Rubio, already one of the highest-profile conservatives in Congress.
“Super Congress” Budget Deal a “Turkey;” a “Lesson in Investment Theory of Political Parties”
THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “Even by American legislative standards, this deal is a turkey and it’s totally appropriate that the new bipartisan Congressional committee should have to report at Thanksgiving. The U.S. economy is plainly stalling out, but beginning in October, the bill enforces sharp cuts in annual appropriations — about $300 billion. It’s obvious that tax rises will not be a significant part of the package: if you couldn’t get any now, what are the chances you can later, with a presidential election even closer? And the noises coming out of Washington today about possible cuts in Medicare falling only on providers and not program beneficiaries are hot air and in D.C. they know it. Because the bill’s second stage opens up the entire tax code to revision, it also guarantees a bonanza in campaign contributions for candidates of both parties next year. This bill is an expensive lesson in what might be termed the investment theory of political parties: that both parties represent big money interests, with the Democrats now representing old Republican positions and the Republicans in some new political hyperspace, where normal math and economics no longer apply — for a while. In time, I think, the popular reaction will be fierce.”
The Super Congress: Taxation Without RepresentationTweet
It would be one thing if Congress members and Senators who were accountable to the voters raised taxes which helped people.
But any tax increases enacted by the wholly-unaccountable "Super Congress" in order to fund (past and future) imperial wars of adventure and bailouts for the Wall Street fraudsters is taxation without representation.